The ULTIMATE Guide to Cutting

What is up, YouTube? I was going to do a

full day of eating today, which will

come soon, but I remembered when I did

that ultimate guide to bulking, a lot of

people requested the ultimate guide to

cutting. So, I'm going to be doing that

instead. Still making a meal right now,

eating clean, but I'm going to be

running you guys through just some tips

and tricks that I learned on the long

along the way of my bodybuilding career

on how to get shredded. It's also

because I'm kind of going into like a

mini cut of myself, at least trying to

lean up while maintain muscle, not a

hard tread. But I'll be talking about

what I do, but mainly about a lot of

questions that I get about it. Similar

to the bulking one, it started off with

how do I know when to cut and how long

do I cut for? And again, it's very

dependent on what your goals are. But in

my opinion, when you start to lose your

abs, for me especially, cuz my abs are

something that are gone pretty late. So

when I have a lot of body fat, I'll lose

them. But if you have no ab showing

anymore, you might be at the point of a

bulk where you're starting to lose and

plateau and you need to cut down, you

know, fix your insulin sensitivity, your

metabolism, your digestion, a lot of

things that are better off in a cut. So,

when you get to that point where you

don't really like how your body looks,

you're kind of fatter than you want to

be, or you just want to be leaner cuz

it's personal preference, then you can

start a cut. And cuts can really go as

long as you want, depending on how you

do it. If it's like a really punch in

the face shred and you're like 2% body

fat, that's aggressive. sub 10% body fat

over an extended period of time, it will

start to affect your hormones. So, you

don't really want to do that for longer

than like, you know, probably 3 to four

months. But if you're just like getting

shredded, coming back up a little bit,

having reheats, consistently fueling

your body, and you're continuously

making progress in the gym, you can keep

going constantly. As long as your body

feels good, your body's optimized,

energy is good, still making progress,

you can keep pushing and going, going.

So, don't stress about going too long,

unless you're like sacrificing in the

gym and you're starting to lose all your

gains.

All right, so the next big thing is how

do you start a cut? And in my opinion,

there's a lot of ways to do it, but

there's two main ways to do it, and it

depends on your lifestyle, so I'll go

over both. The best way to do it, in my

opinion, is you're already eating

relatively consistently. Even if you're

not tracking, but you think you eat the

same thing every day. Log every single

thing that you eat for at least a week.

2 weeks is even better. But if you log

everything you put in your mouth like

condiments, juices, drinks on top of all

your food, vegetables, everything, count

the calories every single day and track

your weight and night and do that for an

extended period of time. Most people

naturally get to a baseline where

they're eating about the same and

they're staying about the same weight

when they're not trying. And that's your

baseline calories. So from there, you

need to adjust up or down on where to

start. The other way is if you're super

inconsistent, you have no idea what

you're eating. Sometimes you're up,

sometimes you're down, and you don't

know where you're going. You can start

with a macro calculator. Enter in all

your all your information. It will tell

you where to start. Give you a rough

estimate. But still start with that.

Follow it every single day for a couple

weeks and track consistently and see

what your weight does. If you're gaining

too fast or losing too fast or whatever

it may be, then you really want to

adjust that from the point of picking

out your macros. Cuz this is personally

how I like to diet. I would pick macros

and then create a diet plan off that and

then stick to that strict diet plan.

Macros are super basic. Everyone know

this. It's going to be 1 to 1.5 grams

per pound of lean body mass of protein

that you want to hit. So if I'm 260

pounds in my offseason, but my lean body

mass is 240, then I want to be a minimum

of 240 g of protein. But I almost always

pump that up to like 350 because there's

a lot of studies that have shown that if

you're hitting up to 100 grams of

protein per meal multiple times in a

day, you can still use that and increase

protein density more and more and more

and keep making more gains. And

especially in a cut when you're trying

to preserve muscle as much as possible,

having enough protein is extremely

crucial. Even your body's ability to

metabolize protein requires more energy

and it's less likely to turn protein

into fat than it is carbs into fat. Some

more protein is a great thing on a cut.

Don't be scared of it. Start with that.

And then from there, picking your carbs

and fats. It's dependent on the

individual. I like to do 7030 splits to

start. So, I do 70% carbs, 30% fat. And

because I have a higher ratio of carbs,

as I'm dieting, I'm kind of pulling from

that. But it's super simple. You start

with that. You find what your baseline

is by tracking over an extended period

of time. Log your food, log your weight,

see what you're at. Biggest tip. Um, I

could probably leave 90% of the world.

Yeah, they're probably not 90% of the

world cuz if you're watching my YouTube

channel, you probably care about your

fitness. You're more into it. But the

average person can just track their

weight, write down what they're putting.

And that psychological conscious

awareness of what they're eating would

change their habits of what they're

eating. They're like, "Holy [ __ ] I'm

eating 100 g of sugar from this coke and

this [ __ ] and all that [ __ ] I'm just I

don't want to write that down. I'm not

going to eat it." And it will make you

better. And even myself at the level

that I am, that still makes me better to

an extent. But when we want to be elite

and make gains, you have to go beyond

that. So track everything consistently

going forward. And once you have that,

you have your baseline calories. So your

weight's not changing. You have enough

protein so that you can recover, make

gains, keep your muscle, and you're at a

consistent thing. I like to drop two to

300 calories to start and add in a

little bit of cardio, not cardio to the

point where you're going crazy or not.

And I'll get into cardio a little bit

later, but the key thing is just drop

200 calories. Personally, I start purely

from carbs. So, I have my baseline 1.5 g

per pound of body weight of protein, 70%

carbs for the rest of my macros, 30%

fat, and then I take 200 calories of

carbs, and I pull that out of my diet.

And then that's how I start, and I know

I'm good to go.

All right, so next thing is that there's

two ways, again, two optimal ways, in my

opinion, is more to it of creating a

diet. There's if it fits your macros.

But if it's fit your macros, whole

foods, which I recommend way more than

if it fits your macros, shitty food. Get

into that, too. And then there's just a

meal plan. I personally like having a

meal plan cuz it just takes the

guesswork out of everything. The more

you have to consciously think and you

get decision fatigue and you go

overinking, you're more likely to make

bad decisions because naturally we go to

the easy decision and we're constantly

over and overthink. We're going to pick

the easy thing, which is usually better

food, more access or something. So, in

my mind, having the same thing I'm

eating every single day, it just doesn't

even have an option to cheat on my meal

to cheat on my meal plan. So, I

literally write it out and I print it

cuz I'm [ __ ] old like that. If I had

a fridge that had a magnet on it, I

would put it right on there. But, I

write this out. Meal 1 2 3 4 5 plus a

shake. And I write it out and I eat the

same thing every single day. And then

from there, it's easy to break. And if I

want on a day, it's like, okay, my

breakfast is two eggs, one scoop of

isolate, 40 g of oats. I'm rushing out

the door. I know 40 g of oats is 27 g of

carbs. I have two pieces of toast that

are each 15 grams of carbs. I'll survive

that day, you know, but typically trying

to hit that. The other style, obviously,

if it fits your macros, the idea of that

one is that you have, my opinion, it

means you have a lot more time on your

hands and you're a person who craves

foods really heavily. So, the idea is

understanding what's going to work best

for you. Whatever plan that you can

adhere to most consistently will be the

best route. Not necessarily saying a

diet plan or macros are the better way

to do it, but if you're going to do one

more consistently, then it's much

better. But when it comes to the macros,

like I said, whole foods are so much

more important. Again, if I were to talk

to the average population, I'd be like,

track your food, eat whole foods. Just

start with fat and most people will be

so much healthier and in much better

shape. And it's a lot harder to over

consume in healthy foods. Like eating

ultrarocessed foods, you're just more

likely to condense calories in. And on

top of that, there's a bigger cascade

effect. I'm not a big believer in the

whole calories in calories out being

everything because there's a hormonal

effect that you have of putting foods in

your body. There's higher inflammation,

higher cortisol, eating at certain times

a day, eating shitty foods. It can

affect your sleep when you sleep soft.

Again, higher cortisol. Higher cortisol

mean it's hard harder for your body to

burn fat. So, you're not going to get

lean as fast. And it could have all

these other effects on top of affecting

your energy while you train your ability

to recover. And obviously, more muscle

you have, the more fat you can burn, the

more muscle you want to have, more

shredded you look. There's so many

effects to it. So, I don't even want to

talk about if it fits your macro shitty

food. I don't recommend at all. Clean

bulks, clean cuts, all the way. Healthy

food is the way to go. We're taking care

of our bodies. Just eat healthy. But if

you have the time to go through every

single meal and be like, "Okay, I'm

going to have 50 g of protein, 10 g of

fat, 30 g of carbs. I can eat whatever I

want in the realm of potato, rice,

chicken, salmon, almond butter, all the

different arrays of healthy whole foods,

then good for you. But I don't have

[ __ ] time for that [ __ ] So, I eat

the same thing every single day, and I

know what I got to do. And if dinner is

something my family's making, then I can

weigh it out and figure it out from

there.

All right, so on the topic of kind of

shitty foods like and if it fits your

macros, people love to ask about cheat

meals. And in my opinion, it depends on

the person. If you're trying to drive

results is your biggest goal and that's

all you care about, then no, you

shouldn't be having cheat meals. A cheat

meal of shitty food is strictly for the

mental reprieve that you need it. So, if

you eat [ __ ] a burger on Sunday and

you can continuously lose weight doing

that and mentally you feel better and it

drives you through the week excited for

that, then fine. We all have our reasons

to push forward and continue. But if

you're optimally trying to progress,

then no, cheat meals are not good. I

really never had cheat meals throughout

my preps unless I like needed to hammer

in like a burger and fries cuz I

couldn't get enough calories in. 99% of

the time it was a refeed day. out with

exactly the same foods I'm eating

consistently, but instead of 100 g of

rice in a meal, it would be like 300 g

of rice and an avocado. So, getting that

clean food and doing it and just kind of

giving my metabolism a kick in the ass,

driving the workout the next day. And

again, I spoke about this a lot in prep,

but those would be typically pushed

right before a leg day. So, if I had

like a heavy workout chest day, the next

day was leg day, I'd have the cheat meal

that night to recover from that chest

day and then drive those carbs into the

leg day the next day. So, I'm getting

recovery and performance from the

benefit. Super important. So, metabolism

is obviously a big talk when it comes to

dieting. And there's like the idea of

ramping up your metabolism and also the

idea of it slowing down over time. And

there's also a lot of debate of whether

or not this is true and what causes it.

But from my personal experience, which

contradicts some studies, but it's

worked for me, so I don't really care.

If I can ramp up my metabolism before

I'm dieting for eating more meals in a

day and more food in a day consistently

and utilize that food by training maybe

a little bit of cardio in my offseason,

then when I started prep eating more

calories, I'm in a much better position.

I've started preps eating 6,000 calories

a day and my diet just like coasts

through. And I've started preps at like

3,000 calories a day where I need to

almost ramp up a bit and then back down

and they're much harder. But I've always

noticed that throughout my offseason, I

get a little bit lazy and I'll eat three

meals a day and I'll start to feel

sluggish, harder to eat, all these

things. And if I cut those meals into

smaller meals and I spread them out

throughout the day, I'm eating the same

amount of food and also my energy will

get better, my digestion will get

better. I'll start to get leaner while

eating the same amount of food. So, I

can up my calories. I'm able to

obviously consume more energy.

Therefore, I'll recover better, train

better, and make more gains. And there's

a lot of people, everyone scientifically

believes that you can't boost your

metabolism by eating more frequent meals

and spreading them out. So, I don't

know, but for me, it has worked every

single time. And I've done it in a

vacuum. Not many people have been like,

I eat the same thing, taking the same

supplements that did not change, the

same thing consistently, the same

cardio, waking up at the same time,

eating the same thing. All I did was

divide from five to six meals, and I got

a little bit leaner from there. And then

I went from six to seven meals at the

end of my Olympia prep, and it was super

helpful for me. So stuff like

intermittent fasting can help because

it's easy to just not eat and then cram

food at the end of the day. But in my

opinion, you're going to blunt your

metabolism over time to do that and

plateau a lot quicker. So not something

I recommend. All right, so another

question consistently get is how fast

should you lose weight and how do you

know if you're losing it too fast? And

in my opinion, the big best way to avoid

that is not by throwing too many tools

in at once. So, like I said at the

beginning, by just starting with a

little bit of cardio and then taking

down 200 calories from your baseline,

you're not just going to plummet from

doing something such a small change. But

if you're like, I'm going to do an hour

cardio. I'm going to cut 1,000 calories.

I'm going to start doing X, Y, and Z.

I'm going to walk every do all these

different things and your body starts

dropping too fast, then you're much

likely to plateau. So, if you're trying

to do a long cut, let your body have the

tools over time. Start with small things

at a time. But on average, I would say

if you're losing more than like

three pounds a month, you're close to

that point. Through my Olympia preps, I

would lose I would start relatively

lean, but to get like peeled, I would

lose 25 lbs over 14 weeks. So that's

less than 2 lbs a week on average. But

typically, I'd get down to like 250 lbs

and then be like 4 weeks out still and I

would lose 10 lbs in the last 4 weeks.

So there's a way that you can do it up

and down. But another big thing on that

is if you start hitting plateaus too

early when their standard plus group,

this is the biggest thing that I've

learned from talking to all these people

will be like, "Hey, I'm plateaued. I

can't lose any more weight. I'm 220 lb

eating a 1,400 calories doing this." And

I'm like, "Wa, that's like a low amount

of calories for that weight to not be

losing any weight." So, your body

probably starts it needs to ramp up a

little bit. And if you're trying to get

lean and that's all you care about,

let's say you're prep in a

transformation challenge or whatever it

may be, in my opinion, the best thing

that you can do is start carb cycling.

And this is like an elite level of

dieting. Cutting your calories is one

thing, but being able to carb cycle is

super effective. So, if you can start

having those refeed days, like I said, a

high carb day before a heavy workout.

You're kind of boosting your body's

metabolism. You're letting it know

you're going to be giving it fuel.

You're going to be giving it something

that it needs so it can like work extra

hard on those days. train hard, get the

system running, and then the next day

when you cut back down to low calories,

it will like fall through that cell. And

it just gives your body the signal that

you're not in starvation mode all the

time cuz your body's constantly

starving. It's just preserving energy

and trying to hold on to the best

possible. So that's one of the best ways

to do it. The other way would just to be

pull off your diet for a little bit, up

your calories by like 200. So the

reverse of how you started, and start

ramping up a little bit rather than

down, and let your body get used to

properly be properly recovering and all

these things. There's so many other

factors that come into that that I could

ramble on forever, but the biggest one I

would say is sleep. If you're high

cortisol and your sleep is [ __ ] and

you're trying to diet, it's going to

stop you from doing it. So sometimes

dieting too hard makes you lose sleep.

So you need that little bit of recmp

where you're eating a little bit more.

Maybe you're taking a little bit off

training. You're recovering. Your

nervous system is recovering. You're

sleeping better. You're dropping your

cortisol for an extended period of time.

And then you hop back in your diet and

you'll continue to progress. So don't

stress about it. If you're like, I'm

eating 1400 calories and I'm not losing

weight. I need to go down 1,000

calories. Maybe your body needs a break.

But really, really listen to yourself

and you have to be tracking consistently

to actually know these things. All

right, so meals sometimes suck in

dieting. And the topline answer is it is

what it is. You're trying to get

shredded. Take it. But for people who

are just dieting for life or even myself

sometimes being able to just optimize

condiments to make food taste a little

bit better, the three top condiments

that I used throughout my preps were

honey mustard, Sriracha, and coconut

aminos. Cocon probably had the most

sugar. I specifically got the whole

foods honey mustard because it was the

lowest amount of sugar, lowest amount of

calories. And in Sriracha, you have to

be careful for some of them. They have

sugar in them, but those are super low

calorie and good to go. But the goal

with condiments is if you start your

prep with them, keep them in until you

have to cut them out. But if you don't

have any condiments in and then you add

them in later, you're technically adding

more calories. So the goal is like if

you start consistently with something

and you're adjusting changes with

everything every other variable being

the same variable being the same, then

you're good to go to continue to make

progress. But you don't want to add in

something like honey mustard when you're

2 weeks out the Olympia cuz you're

adding in a significant amount of

calories relative to what you're eating

to not affect it. But food does some

suck sometimes. So finding the right

amount of condiments to add stuff can be

beneficial. But weigh it at least a

couple times because you'll be shocked

by how much you do it. People who use

almond butter are like, "Yeah, a

teaspoon of it." They're putting like

four tablespoons on it. Or this says

five calories per teaspoon. A teaspoon

is like absolutely nothing. I would

probably put at least four teaspoons

minimum on a meal. So, it's 20 calories.

So, just be conscious of that. Don't be

dumb. What isn't measured, isn't

managed. Continue to track your stuff so

you actually know what's going in your

body and understand why you are or not

getting results.

All right. So, people love to ask about

supplements for especially for cutting,

putting on muscle or cutting. Cutting, I

feel like people just lean into

supplements. I never really was big on

taking specific supplements that led to

fat loss. But in terms of supplements

that can help on a cut, first off, I

would start with things that are just

important in keeping your systems

running, whether it be hormone

production, energy production, all the

different things. So, something like a

multivitamin, especially when you're

dieting really hard. Hopefully, you're

getting your veggies in and all the

stuff, but food also sucks nowadays. But

when you're limiting your food, maybe

you're not getting enough nutrients. So

something like a multivitamin is super

helpful. Beyond that, satiating the body

is super important. Protein is huge. So

I always have a protein powder in it.

It's probably the leanest, easily,

easiest digestible, lowest calorie way

to get in any amount of protein. The

protein shake. Also, in terms of like

diet hacks, if you're ever going out to

like dinner with people and you're

trying to maybe just get a steak and eat

food or not eat at all or going out for

a long drive or whatever it may be, if

you bring a protein shake with you, chug

it right before going to dinner, it like

kills cravings, kills your hunger super

fast when it's only like 140 calories.

So, super beneficial to utilize

something like that. Amino acids also

something really big just in terms of

not losing muscle over extended periods

of time. Being able to sip on it between

meals and spike protein thin more and

more time throughout the day to keep

yourself progressing I think is super

big. On top of that, I would say keeping

inflammation low is always important.

Same thing as cortisol management,

hormone management, just keeping your

systems operating. So something like an

omega-3, super simple and easy to add

in. And then I would say mental things

for myself, especially when I'm down to

like really dying. You start to be tired

and dragging ass and you start to like

not be able to remember a lot of things.

stuff like alpha GPC, Cognizen, Tyroin

to help that dopamine precursor to just

keep your body to keep your mind focused

and locked in, be able to know what

you're doing, especially before the gym,

like pre-workouts that have a good

amount of caffeine and neutropics in it

so that you can focus and get the job

done and not just be like tired and lazy

and hanging around. Super important. So,

in my opinion, I wasn't a big guy taking

any fat burners or anything like if I

take this, I'll get shredded without

doing anything. It was more so

optimizing my systems and curbing my

hunger, keeping protein sensitive high.

I can still not say that word. It'll

never come to me. But that was how I

viewed supplements in a cut for myself.

So give it a shot. Cardio also a huge

question people continuously ask about.

Similar to what I was talking about not

using tools too early, cardio is all

about minimum effective dose. So having

as minimal as possible when you're

trying to maintain as much muscle as

possible. And my cardio has changed now

that I'm not competing anymore. and I

actually care about my cardiovascular

health and I want to be able to hit that

so it's adjusted. But when I was in prep

and I was just trying to get shredded,

it was just incline walk on a treadmill.

The lowest stress on my body which are

where I was burning calories. I was

trying to get my heart rate still to

like 120 beats per minute. And then the

debate is always do you do it at night?

Do you do the morning fasted? How do you

want to do it? And in truth, it really

doesn't matter as long as you're getting

it done. The only thing is you don't

want to do it before a workout because

you don't want to take away your energy

and nutrients away from driving into

putting on muscle because it's still

obviously the most important thing. So,

I used to like doing it first thing in

the morning and then I would eat a

couple meals and train later in the day

and that was the best way to implement

it into my life. Now that I'm retired

and life is different, I train after a

meal one. So, I don't do cardio in the

morning and I'll typically do cardio

post-workout. So instead of doing

before, which ruins your workout, I get

the workout in. Maybe I'll get some

aminos and then I'll do some cardio at

my gym or

or if I'm not at work all day that day,

I'll come home and I bought two pieces

of cardio that are a little bit more fun

than just walking on a treadmill. So, I

have a rower that I've been doing for

hit training and then I have a bike

which I can bike around my neighborhood

and sometimes I combine both of them

just to get more interest more

interesting and I'll do them later in

the day, do them in the sunlight, get

outside, do some things and it kind of

gets more active and gets me outside

doing things rather than just chilling.

I will also say that there's some people

who train bodybuilders who get shredded

and win shows who don't do any cardio.

They just tell them to increase their

steps. Start at like 5k steps, 7k steps,

go to 10k steps, and just walk more in a

day and track that. And those people get

shredded, too, and it's possible. Some

people get shredded without cardio. It

really just depends on your body. So,

the goal is if you're not losing weight

and you brought your calories down a

little bit, then add a little bit of

cardio. I would start with 20 minutes

five times a week, and just get your

body moving, consistently burning a

little bit more calories. The more

output you have, the more input you can

have, the more you can eat, and it's

just a better system for your body to

run. So, try different things that work

best for you. You can do hit cardio, low

intensity, steady state cardio, whatever

you want to do. But if you're a

bodybuilder, an optimalist muscle

training, shredded, nothing else, low

intensity, steady state is the way to

go. Now that I want to have better heart

health, better HRV, be in better shape.

I've been doing a little bit more hit

cardio at times, more biking, more this,

more that, and it's super helpful. All

right, so training on a cut. You could

get a lot deeper into this, but I'm

giving you guys the [ __ ] top line

right now. most important thing that you

need. But in my mind, the goal is to not

have to change your training until you

have to. A lot of people are like, "Oh,

I'm cutting. I'm going to be tired. Let

me drop the weight and then do more

volume." And they do that before they're

actually tired. But you don't want to

preemptively do that. You want to wait

till you're actually to the point where

you can't lift a certain weight cuz

you're so exhausted that it has to pull

down. But if you can keep pushing

forward and keep training hard and

training intense through a cut and not

changing anything, you're going to be

better off. You're going to maintain

more muscle or even put on muscle

throughout that cut. So, I never really

had different programs that were like,

"Hey, I'm going to do sets of 20 now

that I'm dieting because it burns more

calories." Because it really the amount

of car calories extra that it burns is

like negligent and you're just

sacrificing gains by not lifting the way

that's optimal to maintain and build

muscle. So, don't really do it. How do

you train like that? You really just

don't be a [ __ ] The longer that you

can actually push yourself and just

mentally train hard, you're going to be

better off for it. So, the thing that

you can do in a cut around training that

helps it is just nutrient timing. When

you're down to really low calories and

low carbs, the best way training wise is

to put your carbs like moderate before,

high after. It's not high, but if you

have 50 g of carbs in a day, which is

super low, I would do 20 g pre, 30 g

post, and split it up like that so that

you're getting it around your training,

which is the most important time of the

day for your body to be able to recover

and utilize that as you need it. And

that's really the biggest thing that I

change around cutting other than just

spreading out the carbs throughout the

day. The only time that would change is

if your sleep is really bad and you're

starving in the middle of the night and

you can't sleep. You can test this

everything at the test in a sample to

see what works best for your body by

putting some carbs right before bed and

seeing if that doesn't create a blood

sugar drop, a cortisol spike in the

middle of the night, which will ruin

your sleep and then again will affect

your cortisol, your gains, your fat

loss, everything else. But beyond that,

keep training hard. Don't change your

program unless you have to put carbs

around the workout. You're good to go.

All right. So, I'll just go through a

bunch of like tips and tricks now

because a big question is like how do I

fight cravings? Essentially, again,

topline answer is if you want high

results, expect high discomfort. That's

just the way it was. The more you

suffer, the more you endure, the more

results that you'll see. So, that's part

of life and it's inevitable. But on top

of that, if you're like constantly

hungry, having hungry, having crazy

cravings, one thing it may be is

cortisol. High cortisol leads to a

craving for ultrarocessed food, sugar,

dense calories, whatever it may be, it

makes you want food more. So things like

screen exposure, being on your phone too

much, having a stressful life situation,

poor sleep, all these different things

first of all affect each other, which

then also affects the cascade of your

hormones that make you more hungry and

constantly wanting things. So just be

conscious of that. All right. So huge

thing. I talk about this a lot. Having a

structure, having system, setting

yourself for up for success. A taking

the guesswork out of it. So when you

have a conscious brain, when you want

the goal and you have good drive, you

create a plan and then when your brain

is feeling weak and falling off, you

just follow the plan and it makes it

easier for you. But setting yourself up

with something like a system going

throughout your day. Let's say I tell

you it's perfect to eat your carbs

before and after a workout, but in your

mind, you train right in the middle of

the day, and then when you come home at

night, you have these crazy cravings.

Well, then maybe it's better for you to

drive results for you to have lower carb

throughout the day while you're at work,

driving the kids to school, doing

things, busy, not thinking about it. You

keep your calories low as possible,

carbs low at that point. And then when

you're home at night and you're

chilling, you're bored, you're hanging

out doing nothing, your cravings start

to come. Well, at least you have carbs

for that. So, it's kind of called carb

backloading than putting it at the end

of the day. And just that's more playing

a mental game than it is a physical

game, which is totally fine. If it

drives results, it works. These things

are all very nuanced and they're like

fractional benefits. Eat at the right

time and do all the things. When you

stack these things, they work out a lot.

But if you can't follow it because it's

too hard, there's no point. So set

yourself up for success. Create a

system, a structure, a schedule that you

cannot break. Another big thing that

could help is having any level of

accountability. Top line of this would

be having a coach, having someone who's

checking in on you, holding you

accountable, helping you create

structure, and just checking in on you

essentially so you know you have

accountability somewhere. absolutely

huge. Not everyone can afford that. So

sometimes having things like a friend

who's doing it with you, maybe a partner

who supports you, let your wife,

girlfriend, whatever know that this is

super important to you, be on top of me,

track me, work on these things, help me

work through this stuff. Beyond that, if

you don't have that, if you have friends

who lift, hang around the gym. You'll

probably find some. But even my app, the

standard community, we have the

transformation challenge. We have

standard plus. We have weekly calls. We

have a circle group chat. We have all

these chats hanging out in there that

people can meet and talk to each other

and hang out there as they're working

through their goals. And just being

around that energy. You are who you

surround yourself with. So being around

that is super helpful. All right. So a

big thing that I struggle with cuz I

live in Florida, but it I'm when I do

it, I feel way better is doing a

10-minute walk after every single meal

that you eat. There's two reasons why. a

lowers cortisol, helps your digestion,

lowers your blood sugar and it's so good

for you. They've literally done studies

comparing this to metformin and it's had

very similar effects. Stan effort efing

have been talking about this for like 20

years and they're just doing studies on

now proving it. Again, bodybuild is

always head of the science. Just saying

it. He's also a really smart dude

though, so do that. But people who don't

want to do cardio, don't want to do all

this stuff to be able to just eat and

then just go walk around for 10 minutes

is not that hard. If you're structuring

your day properly, you have time for

that and it'll be so much more benefit

to your body. And same thing like I was

talking about for the cardio. If you

don't want to do cardio for an hour or

whatever, just getting in more steps in

a day is super efficient. So if you're

someone who has phone calls in a day or

you're listening to a podcast or you

just have breaks throughout the day

instead of sitting there scrolling your

phone or doing nothing or sitting on a

couch on the phone or behind your desk

on the phone, put your AirPods in,

headphones, whatever you got and go walk

around the parking lot, walk around the

building, whatever it may be, and figure

it out. and help you get in much better

shape much faster. Talk about this a lot

when it comes to a bulk but cutting just

as important digest digestion

can't say that word either is absolutely

huge when it comes to anything

optimizing progress for your body when

it comes to building muscle or burning

fat. So being able to do things like eat

food in a conscious state, if you're in

a high stress state, eating food, not

really chewing, swallowing, like big

pieces, that's going to create bad

digestion, mess up your gut, not be able

to absorb nutrients properly. Again,

like I keep talking about, spike your

cortisol, hold on fat more, just ruin a

lot of things. So having digestive

supplements if you need to take a betain

HCL before you eat, some gut health

products, something that's going to help

you digest, digest enzymes, whatever it

may be. But even just being off your

phone, chewing your food more, being

intentional with it, doing those 10

minutes walks after every single meal

can help you so much in progressing and

moving forward. And just these little

tips and things that you can add

throughout the day. And the more touch

points that you have in the day that are

progressing you towards your goal, the

more conscious you are of your goal and

the more likely you're going to continue

to make good decisions. to doing that on

top of creating a plan while you're at

the beginning of the day or have the

beginning of the weekend full of energy

and follow that plan when you're tired

throughout. You're setting yourself up

for success and you're in a much better

position than most people. So, at the

end of the day, cutting sucks. It can be

hard. It can be also be easy when you

get to a certain point, but if you want

to get shredded, it's not always fun.

But if you want to get something, got to

go through hard [ __ ] sometimes. It's

just the way it is. If you want to drive

results that most people don't get, you

have to do things that most people won't

do, and it's the way it is. So, all

these tips and tricks are something that

help and there's so much more I could

talk about and even myself now being on

a diet and progressing forward in all

the YouTube videos to come, I'll keep

implementing little tips and tricks and

showing you how I'm doing it and

adapting what I'm trying, what's worked

for me, what doesn't. So, I'll continue

to talk about this cuz there's so much

more that you can do. But at the end of

the day, like I said, create a plan,

stick to it, check your food, eat

healthy food, and take care of your body

because being healthy is what matters.

So, have a good reason to do what you're

doing, and it will work out better in

the end.

Yeah, that's my ramble on cutting for

the day. So, I hope you guys enjoyed

this. If you guys want to see me ramble

on other random topics, plan in life,

let me know. Like I said, I will

continuously be talking about this stuff

going forward. So, thank you guys for

watching. I'll see you later.